COVID-19 ongoing thread part 2

[bilateralrope]

Australia records zero community cases, on track for internal borders to open by Christmas

Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt says the Australia is on track for internal borders to be lifted by Christmas, as the country recorded zero community transmissions for the first time since June 9.

Hunt said free movement between Queensland and New South Wales should occur "as soon as possible", saying there was a mounting medical case for the state to open its border to greater Sydney.

"I am very hopeful that now the [Queensland] election is over that this will continue to be a medical decision. If it is a medical decision the very low case numbers ... will provide the strongest possible basis for moving to the next step," Hunt said on Sunday.

He said the continued low case numbers in Victoria and NSW meant the push for a "single internal national bubble" was growing. Highlighting this later, Hunt took to Twitter to reveal Australia recording zero community transmissions on Sunday, the first time since June 9.

"We are on track to meet the Prime Minister's goal of a country which is internally open before Christmas," Hunt said.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, whose government was re-elected on Saturday night, announced last week that the state's border would reopen to all of NSW bar the greater Sydney area from Tuesday.

The partial reopening triggered a strong rebuke from the NSW government and business leaders, including Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce who called it "ridiculous".

West Australia Premier Mark McGowan also announced he would remove his state's "hard border" from November 14, but will still require travellers from NSW and Victoria to quarantine for two weeks.

Outlining Australia's rollout plans for the Covid-19 vaccine, Hunt said the government was still planning for the first doses to be available to Australians by March 2021 with priority given to health workers and the elderly.

"That guidance has been reaffirmed in recent days and then it will be progressively rolled out through the course of the year," he said.

"We would like to see everyone who seeks to be vaccinated, on what would be a voluntary program, completed during the course of 2021 [and] the middle of the year seeing the vast bulk of the population given that access."

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will take the final rollout plans to cabinet in the coming weeks.

Hunt also confirmed the government was close to securing two additional contracts to buy Covid-19 vaccines, including the widely-touted mRNA vaccine.

"An mRNA vaccine, which has never been produced anywhere in the world previously but which is emerging as a very positive class of vaccine, will be part of our portfolio," he said.

Australia has already struck deals for access to 33.8 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and 51 million doses of a University of Queensland vaccine by CSL if clinical trials are successful.

Hunt said the results of those trials had been "more positive than we expected".

It sounds like elimination is within reach for Australia.

[Broomstick]

Good for them!

If only the rest of us were so fortunate.... and sensible.... and rational...and cooperative....

[bilateralrope]

Half of Slovakia's population tested for coronavirus in one daHalf of Slovakia's population tested for coronavirus in one day

Nearly half of Slovakia’s entire population took Covid-19 swabs on Saturday, the first day of a two-day nationwide testing drive the government hopes will help reverse a surge in infections without a hard lockdown.

The scheme, a first for a country of Slovakia’s size, is being watched by other nations looking for ways to slow the virus spread and avoid overwhelming their health systems.

The defence minister, Jaroslav Naď said on Sunday 2.58 million Slovaks had taken a test on Saturday, and 25,850 or 1% tested positive and must go into quarantine.

The EU country has a population 5.5 million people and aims to test as many people as possible, except for children under 10.

More than 40,000 medics and support teams of soldiers, police, administrative workers and volunteers staffed about 5,000 sites to administer the antigen swab tests. The testing was free and voluntary, but the government has said it will impose a lockdown on those who do not participate, including a ban on going to work.

The prime minister, Igor Matovič, apologised for putting pressure on people to take part, but said the requirement was justified. “Freedom must go together with responsibility toward those who ... are the weakest among us, oncology patients, old people, people with other diseases,” he told a news conference.

Slovakia had relatively few cases in the spring and summer after swiftly imposing restrictions. But infections have soared in recent weeks, raising concerns the country may follow the Czech Republic, which has the highest two-week death rate in Europe.

The scheme has faced opposition from some experts who doubted it made sense as one-off measure, or pointed to the antigen tests used, which are less accurate then the laboratory PCR tests and may thus return more false negatives and false positives.

The government is planning a second round of testing next weekend.

On Sunday, Slovakia reported 2,282 new cases through PCR tests, putting the total at 59,946, not including those identified in the nationwide scheme, and 219 deaths to date.

When you need to test, you need to test properly.

[ray245]

Half of Slovakia's population tested for coronavirus in one daHalf of Slovakia's population tested for coronavirus in one day

Nearly half of Slovakia’s entire population took Covid-19 swabs on Saturday, the first day of a two-day nationwide testing drive the government hopes will help reverse a surge in infections without a hard lockdown.

The scheme, a first for a country of Slovakia’s size, is being watched by other nations looking for ways to slow the virus spread and avoid overwhelming their health systems.

The defence minister, Jaroslav Naď said on Sunday 2.58 million Slovaks had taken a test on Saturday, and 25,850 or 1% tested positive and must go into quarantine.

The EU country has a population 5.5 million people and aims to test as many people as possible, except for children under 10.

More than 40,000 medics and support teams of soldiers, police, administrative workers and volunteers staffed about 5,000 sites to administer the antigen swab tests. The testing was free and voluntary, but the government has said it will impose a lockdown on those who do not participate, including a ban on going to work.

The prime minister, Igor Matovič, apologised for putting pressure on people to take part, but said the requirement was justified. “Freedom must go together with responsibility toward those who ... are the weakest among us, oncology patients, old people, people with other diseases,” he told a news conference.

Slovakia had relatively few cases in the spring and summer after swiftly imposing restrictions. But infections have soared in recent weeks, raising concerns the country may follow the Czech Republic, which has the highest two-week death rate in Europe.

The scheme has faced opposition from some experts who doubted it made sense as one-off measure, or pointed to the antigen tests used, which are less accurate then the laboratory PCR tests and may thus return more false negatives and false positives.

The government is planning a second round of testing next weekend.

On Sunday, Slovakia reported 2,282 new cases through PCR tests, putting the total at 59,946, not including those identified in the nationwide scheme, and 219 deaths to date.

When you need to test, you need to test properly.

I hope this will finally show Europe the way out of the pandemic. Test everyone and isolate people as quickly as possible. Especially while cases are low. The question is where will all the people who tested positive be housed? Asking them to simply stay at home is not enough because you can't monitor them if they are actually self-isolating.

[Batman]

Slovakia has a population of 5.5 million. Germany ALONE has 80. You have a way to test all of us I'm all in.

[bilateralrope]

I hope this will finally show Europe the way out of the pandemic. Test everyone and isolate people as quickly as possible. Especially while cases are low. The question is where will all the people who tested positive be housed? Asking them to simply stay at home is not enough because you can't monitor them if they are actually self-isolating.

At some point, a country has too many infected people and thus needs to lock down to get numbers back under control. I'm not sure exactly how many that is, and I expect it's more complicated than just the number of infected plus their close contacts. But if you can't house all the infected in your quarantine facilities, then lockdowns look really tempting.

[PainRack]

Slovakia has a population of 5.5 million. Germany ALONE has 80. You have a way to test all of us I'm all in.

China tested 11 million people of Wuhan in 10 days.

They then tested Qingdao, 9 million a month ago.

They now planning mass testing of over 4 million in Xinjiang.


I mean...I know how hard it is to do that, but it doesn't look impossible anymore. Just mind boggling difficult, expensive and stressful.

[PainRack]

Today. We see two dramatically different responses to Covid.


https://youtu.be/Vyv5sNtI1vI

This is Biden. He just had a briefing with his newly assembled Covid task force. Here he is talking about the plan and news, as America surges forward in a crisis that is the 2nd leading cause of death in America.

https://wpta21.com/2020/11/09/mike-penc ... on-island/

This is Pence.

The task force has not met in a month despite rising surge in cases. Brix and Redfield/Fauci has not met for longer. The first meeting after a month was held on Monday.

More than 1 thousand Americans died on Monday. The US broke ten million Covid cases.

Its the perfect time, after a new meeting to discuss the third wave as the US healthcare system collapse even as you had failed to provide enough PPE, to go on a vacation.

[PainRack]

Today. We see two dramatically different responses to Covid.


https://youtu.be/Vyv5sNtI1vI

This is Biden. He just had a briefing with his newly assembled Covid task force. Here he is talking about the plan and news, as America surges forward in a crisis that is the 2nd leading cause of death in America.

https://wpta21.com/2020/11/09/mike-penc ... on-island/

This is Pence.

The task force has not met in a month despite rising surge in cases. Brix and Redfield/Fauci has not met for longer. The first meeting after a month was held on Monday.

More than 1 thousand Americans died on Monday. The US broke ten million Covid cases.

Its the perfect time, after a new meeting to discuss the third wave as the US healthcare system collapse even as you had failed to provide enough PPE, to go on a vacation to Florida.

[Crazedwraith]

Boris had tested positive again and is self isolating.

That's a very high profile case of reinfection which makes me wonder about the efficacy of vaccination.

Eta:linka

Eta2: I am an idiot who misread. Bojo is self isolsating because a different MP he'd met has tested positive. Not himself.

[Broomstick]

Its the perfect time, after a new meeting to discuss the third wave as the US healthcare system collapse even as you had failed to provide enough PPE, to go on a vacation to Florida.

Yep. That's sort of how Pence handled an outbreak of HIV in Indiana back when he was governor - ignore the problem. So I'm not at all surprised.

[Elfdart]

Its the perfect time, after a new meeting to discuss the third wave as the US healthcare system collapse even as you had failed to provide enough PPE, to go on a vacation to Florida.

Yep. That's sort of how Pence handled an outbreak of HIV in Indiana back when he was governor - ignore the problem. So I'm not at all surprised.

Back in 2000 he tried to filch money earmarked for the Ryan White AIDS foundation and spend it on "Pray Away Teh Ghey" camps instead.

Pence also wrote that he opposed same-sex marriage and extending minority protections to LGBT individuals. BuzzFeed News first tweeted about the section last year.

Here's how the section read:

• Congress should oppose any effort to put gay and lesbian relationships on an equal legal status with heterosexual marriage.

• Congress should oppose any effort to recognize homosexual’s as a "discreet and insular minority" entitled to the protection of anti-discrimination laws similar to those extended to women and ethnic minorities.

• Congress should support the reauthorization of the Ryan White Care Act only after completion of an audit to ensure that federal dollars were no longer being given to organizations that celebrate and encourage the types of behaviors that facilitate the spreading of the HIV virus. Resources should be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.

The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program according to its federal page "works with cities, states and local community-based organizations to provide HIV care and treatment services to more than 512,000 each year, reaching approximately 52% of all those diagnosed with HIV in the United States."

Being Trump's sidekick was the best career move Pence could have made in his wildest dreams. All the animosity is aimed at Il Douchebag, so there's none left for Pence.

[PainRack]

https://www.sunherald.com/news/coronavi ... 29151.html



Another hero passed , to stand the eternal vigil.



Her daughter taking up the torch her mom passed on.



The lamp of Nightingale flickers ... But it shines still, guiding one on to the next waypoint. Be one with the powers that be Elaine McRae. You have earned your rest. We who remain will stay in the fight.



https://mississippitoday.org/2020/09/21 ... formation/



We ask for your help. PPE supplies are still short. Misinformation, discrimination is rampant. The cult leader still lives, we need to purge them root and branch.

[madd0ct0r]

More UK medical staff have died of covid then UK soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan

[PainRack]

More UK medical staff have died of covid then UK soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan

More Americans have died of Covid than in WW1 and 60k of that was from influenza. Its estimated that more US HCW has died of Covid than from service in WW1 or 2.

[PainRack]

Fuck....



https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4057





The WHO solidarity trials isn't published yet but preprint suggest an Avastin situation with Remdesevir. It improves the outcome of progression yes.... But has no impact on reducing the number of people who dies from disease.

[Tsyroc]

My department now has a freezer capable of going down to minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit. (-62.222C)

I've been jokingly calling it the Pfizer Freezer since we got it so we can handle the Pfizer vaccine. Management expects that we'll have the actual vaccine by the middle of next month.

The rumors I've heard is that pharmacy (my department) will be directly involved in drawing up doses at the location they are to be administered. They are looking to come up with a separate cost center for this so I suspect that I might be asked to help out after one of my shifts or during a day off.

Incidentally, the freezer was manufactured on the 15th of this month. Somebody is cranking those babies out and their business is likely good to go for the foreseeable future.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Manufacturing of -80 freezers isn't really an issue. The hard part is going to be distribution on grounds of "federal government isn't gonna wanna fund it." If we had an actual, functional federal government making sure every single vaccine distribution point in the country had adequate -80 freezer space to keep up with supply+demand would be utterly trivial. Alas, one of the major political parties is a fucking death cult.

[Tsyroc]

Ooops.

Turns out our new freezer goes down to -80C (-112F) not Fahrenheit.

[LadyTevar]

A new study found coronavirus may have been in the US in December.

A new study published Monday suggests the novel coronavirus was infecting people across the US as early as December -- a month before the first person known to have been infected with coronavirus arrived in the US from China on January 15.

Researchers screened blood donations made in December and early January and found evidence of antibodies to the novel coronavirus in at least 84 samples from nine states -- something that would suggest those people had been infected with coronavirus.

"These findings suggest that SARS-CoV-2 may have been introduced into the United States prior to January 19, 2020," the researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Red Cross wrote in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Many people wonder if they may have had coronavirus early in the pandemic, or even before people knew the virus was circulating.

It would be hard to know unless someone took a coronavirus test at the time -- something that obviously did not exist. The symptoms are similar to those of many other flu-like infections: a cough, a fever, body aches, perhaps a sore throat.

And without a sample taken at the time of infection or soon after, it will be impossible to know whether an individual was infected back then, said Dr. Ian Lipkin, an infectious diseases specialist at Columbia University.

Antibody tests can indicate a past infection, but not when that infection occurred.

"You cannot distinguish between somebody being infected in December or being infected in March or April," Lipkin told CNN.

A person's immune response to a viral infection such as Covid-19 changes over time. Several studies have shown that antibody responses ramp up right after infection and then change over time. It's not yet known how long the human body maintains an immune response to coronavirus infection.
"There are tests that in the first few weeks of infection indicate very recent infection, but after that you can't really tell," Lipkin said. The only exception would be if someone had taken a blood test earlier that showed they were negative for the virus.

But the study shows that blood donations may be an important source of information about when the virus began circulating, the CDC and Red Cross researchers said. "These findings also highlight the value of blood donations as a source for conducting SARS-CoV-2 surveillance," they wrote in Tuesday's report. SARS-CoV-2 is the scientific name for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.

Blood donations stored since last year could be tested for antibodies, although the type of test could be important. Several other coronaviruses cause common colds and tests could mistakenly detect infections with those viruses, the CDC and Red Cross researchers noted.

"We clearly want to know how long this virus has been circulating," Lipkin added.
"People are trying to figure out when this first appeared outside China."

[Nicholas]

A new study found coronavirus may have been in the US in December.

A new study published Monday suggests the novel coronavirus was infecting people across the US as early as December -- a month before the first person known to have been infected with coronavirus arrived in the US from China on January 15.

Researchers screened blood donations made in December and early January and found evidence of antibodies to the novel coronavirus in at least 84 samples from nine states -- something that would suggest those people had been infected with coronavirus.

"These findings suggest that SARS-CoV-2 may have been introduced into the United States prior to January 19, 2020," the researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Red Cross wrote in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Many people wonder if they may have had coronavirus early in the pandemic, or even before people knew the virus was circulating.

It would be hard to know unless someone took a coronavirus test at the time -- something that obviously did not exist. The symptoms are similar to those of many other flu-like infections: a cough, a fever, body aches, perhaps a sore throat.

And without a sample taken at the time of infection or soon after, it will be impossible to know whether an individual was infected back then, said Dr. Ian Lipkin, an infectious diseases specialist at Columbia University.

Antibody tests can indicate a past infection, but not when that infection occurred.

"You cannot distinguish between somebody being infected in December or being infected in March or April," Lipkin told CNN.

A person's immune response to a viral infection such as Covid-19 changes over time. Several studies have shown that antibody responses ramp up right after infection and then change over time. It's not yet known how long the human body maintains an immune response to coronavirus infection.
"There are tests that in the first few weeks of infection indicate very recent infection, but after that you can't really tell," Lipkin said. The only exception would be if someone had taken a blood test earlier that showed they were negative for the virus.

But the study shows that blood donations may be an important source of information about when the virus began circulating, the CDC and Red Cross researchers said. "These findings also highlight the value of blood donations as a source for conducting SARS-CoV-2 surveillance," they wrote in Tuesday's report. SARS-CoV-2 is the scientific name for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.

Blood donations stored since last year could be tested for antibodies, although the type of test could be important. Several other coronaviruses cause common colds and tests could mistakenly detect infections with those viruses, the CDC and Red Cross researchers noted.

"We clearly want to know how long this virus has been circulating," Lipkin added.
"People are trying to figure out when this first appeared outside China."

There have been a number of things like this which imply that SARS-CoV-2 was around for a while before we noticed it. That strikes me as unlikely although not impossible. I think it more likely that what is going on is that wherever Covid-19 came from it would have needed time to evolve. Covid-19 is well suited to infecting human beings, I don't think that happened with a single mutation. That implies that somewhere the earlier versions of Covid-19 were able to move back and forth between people and whatever animal hosts the disease came from. Covid-19 would only being to spread once the version evolved that was able to effectively pass from person to person. I think it more likely that what we are seeing in this study is people who had contracted earlier versions, wherever the virus came from, that failed to infect people and so died out when separated from their original host species.

Nicholas

[loomer]

Just in case anyone was wondering, COVID continues to impact Native American communities disproportionately. The Navajo Nation, which was already home to the single most intense outbreak anywhere in the US, is now in the middle of a second wave, with a death rate twice that of the average. The Dakota outbreaks are also disproportionately impacting Native American people with higher hospitalization rates and deaths. Similar disproportionate infection rates hold for Canada's First Nations. And, of course, the impact of the outbreak on language preservation is basically catastrophic, since COVID disproportionately kills the elders who possess the knowledge.

[Ziggy Stardust]

How much health literacy is there among Native American communities? Like, are there lots of natives not wearing masks?

(I realize that the disproportionate burden on them is largely due to structural issues, I'm not trying to pass the blame onto those communities in any way, I am just curious because I don't know much about the politics of these places. I know the Dakotas in general have a lot of anti-mask white people, just wasn't sure how much those attitudes were confined to them)

[loomer]

I'm not sure, unfortunately, though my understanding is it tends to be more related to some of the logistical problems involved - higher numbers of multigenerational families with higher density, less access to sanitation infrastructure, and so on. The big issue (or at least one of them - there was also an early religious dimension) for the Navajo Nation has apparently been that they usually have to head into towns off the Nation that have fairly vigorous anti-mask movements to buy food and supplies, so any time there's a bigger outbreak in the neighbouring communities or tourists come by, the risk of exposure skyrockets.

[Broomstick]

There is also a higher incidence of co-morbidities among Native Americans for a variety of reasons. Among them are diabetes, obesity, and heart disease (all inter-related) which also greatly increase the risk of covid-19 turning into a disaster. Some of this is due to environment - poverty that leads to poor nutritional support, a legacy of food handouts from the Feds that, to put it mildly, did not nothing to encourage healthy eating, multi-generational households that involve crowding together of people (great for spreading contagious diseases of any sort) due to both poverty (again) and sociological factors.

There is also a genetic component - Native Americans are more prone to diabetes than those of European or African descent, even when you correct for some of the financial and environmental factors. This may or may not be genetic in origin, or partly due to genetic traits that might have enabled survival either as people leaning more towards hunter-gatherers or enabling their more recent ancestors to survive the waves of plagues that ensued when the Europeans arrived. (As a parallel - African-Americans being more prone dangerously high blood pressure when compared to both Europeans and Africans who remained in Africa might be linked to genetic traits that increased the chances of an individual surviving the horrific Middle Passage. Sometimes what gets you through one crisis generates another down the line.)

But you can't discount that a LOT of the disparity is due to poverty and Native Americans being an oppressed minority embedded in a larger culture that mostly doesn't even think about them or care about them. Add in some areas where there is still active bigotry towards them and it gets even worse. Native Americans have even LESS access to medical care than the surrounding mainstream culture - and the US's appalling infection and death rate demonstrates just how fucked up the society I live in is in regards to public health and dealing with a pandemic.

I wish I had an answer to all this. As it is, I kept dragging my ass to work every day to do my part to keep the infrastructure feeding my local community intact until I myself came down with covid. Then when I recovered went right back to doing it, as well as volunteering to get food and supplies to shut-ins and the frail/ill/elderly in a safe manner (as I've now had it, it's unlikely I'll be able to either get it or give it for at least a few months, so I'm one of the safer couriers available). I've helped several people who lost their income get jobs where I work to keep their households afloat. I've donated time, money, and muscle to food pantries. The very first day I was cleared to go outside again after my illness I dragged my sorry, still fatigued ass to stand in line for literal hours to vote out the incompetent bastards fucking up my country. I am heartily sick of sewing masks so just as happy I'm no longer asked to do that much, but I churned out a couple hundred in the early days. It's overwhelming, but my local community is really the only place I have an ability to do anything to help and it's still fucking frustrating.

The anti-masker crowd isn't just annoying and loud, they can be frightening. At work I have been literally screamed at, sworn at, called all manner of nasty names, and even threatened. We have had actual physical fights between people over the mask issue, not just pushing and shoving but serious, all-out two guys literally beating the shit out of each other with blood and even teeth flying. We have had a person attempt to ram their way into the store with an SUV because they were upset at reduced business hours and wanted to be served RIGHT NOW DAMMIT!!! (It fucked up the door, but the anti-bullshit barriers and door frame held, no one hurt but the idiot driver). We've had people pull masks off other people. We've had people deliberately cough on each other, spit on each other, and probably other things I really, really don't want to know about (the paint-the-toilet-with-fecal-matter I can't blame on the epidemic - we get that sort of thing even in normal times because even the mentally ill need to eat and are allowed to go shopping. When we catch them doing shit-paintings, red brown-handed, we can have them arrested.) We have recently noticed a number of people shopping while visibly armed so now we're all concerned about someone flipping out, bringing a gun to a fist-fight, or otherwise upping the ante on the hatred, fear, and violence to a new level.

The rich can stay home, order stuff to be delivered, work from home, and whine about their "house arrest". Meanwhile, the rest of us have to go out into this clusterfuck for work, for food, for any other need we might possibly have.

Bring it back to what loomer was saying - the situation sucks for mainstream America right now. For someplace like the Navajo Nation which is poorer in every respect, which has less access to everything, and is living in more crowded conditions with less access to healthcare and on average much poorer health.... well, orders of magnitude worse. At that, the Pine Ridge Sioux are probably even worse off than the Navajo - Pine Ridge has long been the poorest and most oppressed of "Indian reservations". That group has spent more time in lockdown (and I mean actual lockdown) than most. Worst of all, they're in South Dakota which has displayed a level of stupidity about the epidemic that is both mind-boggling and (literally) breath-taking.

Then you have the politcal bullshit of politicians attempting to overturn the lockdowns and restrictions the Native groups themselves have imposed on what is supposed to be their own lands for reasons that are only and solely political in nature and don't give a flying fuck about the health of anyone.

I should probably stop now. It's my day off and I have to get some stuff done for me before I go back to work tomorrow and the frustrating mission of trying to save what's left of civilization one bag of commodities at a time.